Not Easy
Working
on the 35 Day Practice guide was a great activity for me, as I hope it was for anyone who kept up with it. It was a good opportunity for me to look at the Lotus Sutra from what I imagine a new person would view it. It isn’t easy to begin to practice Buddhism and the Lotus Sutra, it is sometimes even harder to keep on going for many years.
The challenges of practice are many, they sometimes include family, friends, society, job, finances, time, perceptions of self and many more, probably as many different reasons as there are people who practice. We may all secretly harbor a wish for an easy time of practice, even possibly an easy comfortable practice.
“Needless to say, those who keep all the passages of this sutra and make various offerings to this sutra are great Bodhisattvas. Medicine-King, know this! They should be considered to have given up the rewards of their pure karmas and appeared in the evil world after my extinction in order to expound this sutra out of their compassion towards all living beings.” (Lotus Sutra, Chapter X)
We should always keep in our mind that fundamentally our reason for practicing Buddhism is because we wish to save other beings, and we gave up lives of ease and comfort so that we could expound this Sutra in the age after the death of the Buddha. This is a pretty powerful statement, and of course it relies upon a certain belief in cause and effect and the truth of the words of the Buddha.
We have to ask ourselves though, if we don’t fully believe in these words, by what cause have we come into contact with the Lotus Sutra? What is our relationship with the Lotus Sutra? We can easily say that it is merely a chance encounter in this life of seemingly unlimited chance encounters. But even if it is a chance encounter we still must have a connection because who else is attempting to practice the Lotus Sutra in this age after the death of the Buddha.
“The good men or women who expound even a phrase of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma even to one person even in secret after my extinction, know this, are my messengers. They are dispatched by me. They do my work.” (Lotus Sutra, Chapter X)
If you are such a person who practices, to any degree, the teachings of the Lotus Sutra then you are in fact fulfilling a promise, which originally was to practice at this time. No matter how seemingly insignificant you may view your actions or practice the Buddha is very clear that you are functioning in fact, even if not yet in belief, as a messenger of the Buddha.
I encourage each of us to deeply consider our wonderful karmic connection to the Lotus Sutra. The deeper we can absorb this into our lives, the deeper we relate to this, the greater our joy and the greater our merit. Yet even a moment of practice in this age is greater than all the practices performed during the lifetime of the Buddha.
Yes, it is that hard! So you should be proud of your great efforts and continue your practice no matter what.
“If you wish to obtain quickly the knowledge of the equality and differences of all things, keep this sutra, and also make offerings to the keeper of this sutra! Anyone who keeps the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, know this, has compassion towards all living beings because he is my messenger. Anyone who keeps The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma should be considered to have given up his pure world and come here out of his compassion towards all living beings. Know that he can appear wherever he wishes! He should be considered to have appeared in this evil world in order to expound the unsurpassed Dharma.” (Lotus Sutra, Chapter X)
